When Foam Rolling Changed a Life.
Hello friends, and welcome to the first issue of The Athlete Spot™ Weekly.
Today I want to share with you the story of how foam rolling changed my client’s life when I was still a new strength and conditioning coach back in 2015.
This is her story, and not everyone will have the results and effects she did from foam rolling. Her experience is her own.
Names and places have been changed for anonymity purposes.
Foam rolling has been one of the most popular exercise tools in the sports and rehab world for quite some time now. Most of us have found ourselves rolling up and down this piece of styrofoam (or PVC pipe) hoping for pain relief or improved muscle flexibility. Some of us have had great success, while others have not. But, let’s be honest. Most of us have a love-hate relationship with the roller.
Why? Because rolling on can be very uncomfortable!!
It sure feels great when you are done rolling tho.
It really makes you think:
Am I really getting any benefit from this?
What is foam rolling actually doing?
What are the benefits for me?
Meet Sarah (again, not her real name).
Sarah was a 43-year-old female, mother of two great kids, wife to a very supportive husband, long-distance runner, and a loyal 4-am gym-goer.
I first met Sarah in the Spring of 2015 when she inquired about starting her strength training journey. Sarah had been a runner for as long as she could remember, running track in high school and cross-country in college, and continuing her running career now as a stay-at-home mom. Sarah had running in her DNA.
I remember our first meeting.
It was 4 am on a Wednesday morning, and we sat across from each other in the gym lobby. It was just another casual conversation getting to know each other, and diving deeper into her goals.
Sarah wanted to begin strength training because she had been suffering from multiple stress fractures on her feet and legs from running throughout the last two years, and she was tired of running in pain. She was already working with a registered dietitian to make sure she was eating adequately to fuel her recovery. It was actually her dietitian that recommended strength training to improve her bone density.
I was excited to help her! After all, strength (resistance) training has been shown to improve bone density and resilience.
We finish our conversation and moved on to our functional assessment.
At the end of our assessment, it was evident that her mobility was limited, she could barely perform a squat, a hinge, and a push-up; her strength and motor control weren’t adequate.
Throughout her assessment, she complained about one thing, and one thing only. I thought she would complain about not being able to perform a squat properly or complete a single push-up, as this was her competitive nature.
No, she complained about being tight. From tight calves, to tight back and shoulders, she made sure I knew every area that was tight.
At this point in time, I had been training athletes for two years. Tightness is something we can work on with adequate load, technique, and recovery, but she was hesitant to start resistance training because it would make the tightness worse.
After a few minutes of explaining to her how resistance training would help her tightness to no avail, I had the idea of introducing her to foam rolling. I hadn’t used a foam roller consistently myself, but I knew of a few trainers, and physical therapists that recommended foam rolling for sore muscles. I figured it could help her.
Foam rolling has been promoted to increase joint range of motion, decrease muscle soreness, improve performance, and break up adhesions.
So we built a 5-minute foam rolling session on the spot.
“OH MY GOD!”
These were the first words she said as she started foam-rolling her calves.
“Ugghhh, this is rough ” as she started foam rolling her hamstrings and low back.
I had foam rolled in the past, and I was very well aware that it could be uncomfortable.
Five minutes later, she stands up and says “WOW. I feel really, really good!”
She did exactly what we all end up doing after a foam rolling session. Tested her range of motion.
“Wow. I didn’t know something that hurt like that could feel so good afterward. My hamstrings feel great, and my back feels really good too!”
At this point in my career, I wasn’t very familiar with the mechanism by which foam rolling actually helped, and as a coach, I refrained from giving her any scientific explanation of how and why it worked. I simply didn’t know.
In just five minutes of foam rolling, her tightness had changed. Her perception of her own body had changed, and now she was ready to start some resistance training.
For the next few months, Sarah made leaps of progress in her motor control, her running, and her strength. It took us about 2 months to ease off foam rolling during every training session. Now she was only foam rolling when she felt a little more tightness than usual, which was typically after her long-distance runs.
Six months later, Sarah had gone from a janky-bodyweight squat to squatting 165 lbs for multiple repetitions. She had shaved 5.5 minutes from her 10K run. Best of all, she had been training and running weekly, with no signs of stress fractures, or injuries on the rise for the last 6 months.
I was only able to work with her for 8 months, as I was moving to begin my education as a chiropractor. When I had to say goodbye, she didn’t thank me for helping her get strong, or faster, or helping with her bone density, and injury prevention.
She thanked me for changing her life.
She thanked me for introducing her to foam rolling. It had changed her life and said she was better for it.
Now, here’s the real question: What actually changed?
After completing my education as a chiropractor and diving into understanding sports medicine and the myofascial system. I now have a better understanding of what may be happening when we foam roll.
Let’s first talk about what is not happening:
You are not breaking up adhesions (connective tissue in between muscle and skin)
You are not breaking up muscle knots.
You are not changing the tension of the muscles (directly)
So, what is most likely happening?
You are stimulating a variety of neural receptors within the connective tissue
These receptors signal the brain to inhibit certain sensory and motor centers (but not always)
These receptors may alter body perception, and therefore reduce pain/discomfort
This response is a short-term change
So, what changed in Sarah, and is foam rolling for you?
Looking back at my interactions with Sarah, it wasn’t her connective tissue that changed. Her muscles didn’t lengthen and her tightness didn’t disappear overnight because of foam rolling.
She had a change in perception.
Foam rolling is hard.
Foam rolling is uncomfortable.
Foam rolling is not for everyone, but it was what Sarah needed.
It changed her body’s perception.
It provided her with a solution to her tightness, which allowed her to change her mind and start resistance training within the week of our initial interaction.
It was the beginning of her journey to improve her quality of life and her performance.
I haven’t talked much to Sarah since 2018, so I can’t tell you what other social or psychological stressors were a part of her life back in 2015, and how they might’ve contributed to her perception, but from our last interaction, she continues to strength train on her own, has slowed down on her running, and now travels a lot more since her daughter became a licensed pilot.
So, should you foam roll?
It Depends.
If you have been foam rolling, and have had some benefit from it, you sure can continue foam rolling.
If you have been foam rolling, and it doesn’t seem to make any type of change, it’s probably time to ditch the foam roller and seek out some guidance.
If you have never foam rolled, and are curious about it send me a message and we can talk about whether it would be good for you or not.
As of the day of this writing, we are still learning about the mechanisms by which foam rolling might help athletes and the general population improve their performance on and off the field and their quality of life.
For now, that is all.
Thank you for taking the time to read this week’s The Athlete Spot™ Weekly.
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I hope you have a great Saturday and I wish you a great week!
In health and strength,